Kepler...and Tatooine. They went there. 
The Christian Science Monitor: NASA's Kepler observatory to continue hunt for strange new worlds
Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts (3130)
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BOULDER, Colo. – Physicists at JILA have demonstrated a novel “superradiant” laser design, which has the potential to be 100 to 1,000 times more stable than the best conventional visible lasers. This type of laser could boost the performance of the most advanced atomic clocks and related technologies, such as communications and navigation systems as well as space-based astronomical instruments.
Described in the April 5, 2012, issue of Nature,* the JILA laser prototype relies on a million rubidium atoms doing a sort of synchronized line dance to produce a dim beam of deep red laser light. JILA is a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder (CU).
JILA/NIST physicist James Thompson says the new laser is based on a powerful engineering technique called "phased arrays" in which electromagnetic waves from a large group of identical antennas are carefully synchronized to build a combined wave with special useful features that are not possible otherwise.
NIST: JILA Team Demonstrates 'A New Way of Lasing': A 'Superradiant' Laser
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| Technology Review |
Technology Review: One of the great discoveries of biology is that the engines of life are molecular motors--tiny machines that create, transport and assemble all living things.
That's triggered more than a little green-eyed jealousy from physicists and engineers who would like to have molecular machines at their own beck and call. So there's no small interest in developing molecular devices that can be easily harnessed to do the job.
Today, Jin Zhang at the University of California Los Angeles and a few pals say they've identified a machine that fits the bill.
A couple of year ago, chemists discovered that groups of 13 or 19 boron molecules form into concentric rings that can rotate independently, rather like the piston in a rotary Wankel engine. Because of this, they quickly picked up the moniker "molecular Wankel engines". The only question was how to power them.
Physics arXiv: Photo-driven Molecular Wankel Engine, B13+
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| Matthew J. Laznicka - Popular Mechanics |
Acts 2:17 (redacted): ...and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams...
Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower, and Parable of the Talents are defined as "dystopian novels," not unlike "1984" (which happens to be the year I graduated college undergrad - Orwellian). I'm not so sure that a movie of either work would do justice to the stories told: based on the after effects of global warming, short-sighted politics, hyper empathy, religion, race, class, sexuality, slavery and spaceflight! A lot in both works.
The [apparent didactic] function of the dystopian: sound the alarm of where we're likely heading, make it as horrible as humanly possible and steer us in a course correction from plunging over a social/political/scientific cliff (metaphorically speaking). Or, at least the sheer satisfaction of saying: "I told you so!" The Dark Knight Returns (void of didacticism), another influential, modern example.
However, I was struck by the call in this article for "Big, Bold Science Fiction" reflective of the big, bold times. However, we're dominated by the technology as "end-users" not producers; the goal now to get-a-job to buy/consume the stuff; our fantasies are handed to us on a CD or million-player online universes by video game programmers. I seldom see or hear of kids reading comic books (most of the purchases are by adults now). S.T.E.M. careers are being avoided in droves, the void filled by other young people in other countries more prepared to face the challenges of a high-tech world...and probably higher reading rates in speculative and classical fiction.
*****
The future isn't what it used to be. And neither is science fiction. While books about space exploration and robots once inspired young people to become scientists and engineers—and inspired grownup engineers and scientists to do big things—in recent decades the field has become dominated by escapist fantasies and depressing dystopias. That could be contributing to something that I see as a problem. It seems that too many technically savvy people, engineers in particular, are going to work for Web startups or investment firms. There's nothing wrong with such companies, but we also need engineers to design bold new things for use in the physical world: space colonies instead of social media.
Read more: Why We Need Big, Bold Science Fiction - Popular Mechanics
See also: FutureMorphdotorg
ROI: return on investment. An investment in education, preparing our children for 21st Century careers. An investment in fusion energy, harnessing the power of the sun, using Deuterium, plentiful in oceans, producing heat to turn turbines and generate electricity. Most of it is now done with coal. This could change geopolitical concerns, increase energy independence by reducing our carbon footprint.
High-gain nuclear fusion could be achieved in a preheated cylindrical container immersed in strong magnetic fields, according to a series of computer simulations performed at Sandia National Laboratories.The simulations show the release of output energy that was, remarkably, many times greater than the energy fed into the container's liner. The method appears to be 50 times more efficient than using X-rays—a previous favorite at Sandia—to drive implosions of targeted materials to create fusion conditions.
"People didn't think there was a high-gain option for magnetized inertial fusion (MIF) but these numerical simulations show there is," said Sandia researcher Steve Slutz, the paper's lead author. "Now we have to see if nature will let us do it. In principle, we don't know why we can't."
High-gain fusion means getting substantially more energy out of a material than is put into it. Inertial refers to the compression in situ over nanoseconds of a small amount of targeted fuel.
Research & Development: Nuclear fusion simulation shows high-gain energy output
Sandia National Laboratories: Magnetic Field Coil Designs for MagLIF (PDF)
April 15this the day! Countdown at the link below.
Or...you can commiserate over your taxes (ahem: like me). 
More at: PhDComicsdotcom/movie
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| Brookhaven National Laboratory |
UPTON, NY — An international collaboration of scientists has reported a landmark calculation of the decay process of a kaon into two pions, using breakthrough techniques on some of the world’s fastest supercomputers. This is the same subatomic particle decay explored in a 1964 Nobel Prize-winning experiment performed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), which revealed the first experimental evidence of charge-parity (CP) violation — a lack of symmetry between particles and their corresponding antiparticles that may hold the answer to the question “Why are we made of matter and not antimatter?”
The new research — reported online in Physical Review Letters March 30, 2012 — helps nail down the exact process of kaon decay, and is also inspiring the development of a new generation of supercomputers that will allow the next step in this research.
BNL: Supercomputing the Difference between Matter and Antimatter
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| A&T-UNCG Nanoscience-Nanoengineering Consortium |
The aphorism "a rising tide lifts all boats" is associated with the idea that improvements in the general economy will benefit all participants in that economy, and that economic policy, particularly government economic policy, should therefore focus on the general macroeconomic environment first and foremost. The phrase is attributed to John F Kennedy Wikipedia
Admittedly biased; tremendously blessed.
December '84, Engineering Physics graduate - Aggie Pride!
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| Credit: PhysicsWorld |
...thank Einstein (though reluctant to have contributed to its creation), preceding him James Clerk Maxwell, Michael Faraday, Gustav Kirchoff, Ludwig Boltzmann, Henrich Hertz, Max Planck; contemporaries Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard and Max Born who coined "Zur Quantenmechanik" in a 1924 paper, the inimitable Richard Feynman, and any physicist or engineer that has studied, used and designed with quantum mechanics since.
Any oversight is an error on my part.
Researchers in California have developed a system that can rapidly determine the size of an earthquake and the extent of its impacts within a fault zone, including its potential for triggering a devastating tsunami. The researchers have used the system – which is based on GPS measurements – to accurately model two historic earthquakes in Japan and northern Mexico.
The 2011 Japanese earthquake disaster showed that the first few minutes after an earthquake are critical. When the Tōhoku earthquake struck, it took geophysicists more than 20 min to compute that the earthquake was magnitude 9.0 on the Richter scale. Had the authorities known the full extent of the earthquake sooner, it would have given them valuable time to activate early-warning systems to help prepare people for the large tsunami that would inevitably follow.
Physics World: Rapidly spotting major earthquakes using GPS
Hosea 8:7 NKJV - They sow the wind, And reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no bud; It shall never produce meal. If it should produce, Aliens would swallow it up.
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| Credit: LiveScience |
ATLANTA — The United States is at risk of ceding its leadership in science, a number of physicists agreed Monday (April 2), though there was less of a consensus on a clear solution to the problem.
Five physicists shared their worries about America's scientific future during a panel discussion here at the April 2012 meeting of the American Physics Society, saying that governmental funding for science research is in crisis, and not enough U.S. students graduate with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math.
"There are some facts and figures that are very disturbing, which show the United States might be losing ground in science and discovery, whereas other countries are gaining," Pushpa Bhat, a physicist at Illinois' Fermi Accelerator National Laboratory (Fermilab), said at a press conference preceding the panel. "We can't sit back and watch."
Bhat lamented the lack of cutting-edge physics facilities in this country. While many of the world's best instruments and experiments, such as Fermilab's Tevatron particle accelerator, used to be housed here, that frontier has moved elsewhere. For example, the world's largest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider, is located at the CERN lab in Switzerland, while Illinois' Tevatron has shut down.
Not to sound Cassandra (my wife's name, though lovely, Apollo has given her no gift of prophesy), but I see our dilemma as "a trifecta of three Ds":
Deification of market forces - Libertarianism, Neoliberalism, Outsourcing - in all aspects of public life
Devaluation of a well-rounded education curriculum - PE for non-athletes, music helping math scores, art/poetry helping reading comprehension, the discontinuation of learning how-to write in script (texting now dominate) - for standardized testing that teaches life's answers are a, b, c, d, or e (all of the above)
Disingenuous manipulation of The First Amendment for political gain
Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics: This has historically been the source of wealth since Sputnik. It focused our country to become a technological behemoth before culture wars became dominant. I fear our short-sightedness is a national Attention Deficit Deficiency, a result of our instant access to information, sound-bite dominated media, text messaging, 140-character limits that does not encourage reflection on what we do now, and how it affects the future.
Live Science: Crisis for US Science Is Looming, Physicists Warn
APS: See article "Endangered Physics Department Saved,"middle of page
Education: What are your plans for the ascendance of nanotechnology in the United States? Do you have a comprehensive plan similar to the concentration of American education vis-à-vis the post-“Sputnik moment” of the 1960s – 70s?
Space: Do you understand the Fibonacci sequence, and how it would possibly be used in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence?
Submit yours: ScienceDebatedotorg2012
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| Hermes debued at Austin Convention Center during National Instruments' Week 2011 |
Then...
S.T.A.R. Labs, is a fictional research facility, and comic book organization appearing in titles published by DC Comics. It first appeared in Superman #246 (December 1971) and was created by Cary Bates and Rich Buckler.
S.T.A.R. The Scientific and Technological Advanced Research Laboratories was founded by a scientist named Robert Meersman, who wanted a nationwide chain of research laboratories unconnected to the government or any business interests. He succeeded not only on a national scale, but an international one as well: S.T.A.R. Labs currently maintains facilities in Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan as well as in the United States, with the total number of facilities numbering between twenty and thirty at last recorded count. (Wiki)
Space Transport and Recovery Systems, LLC (STAR Systems) is a startup aerospace venture dedicated to providing affordable access to space with the Hermes spacecraft: a suborbital space shuttle for everyone, built on the premise that anyone should be able to take a trip into space without spending their life savings. By combining the latest commercially available advances in materials science and hardware with over 60 years of lessons learned in aerospace technology and a “build-a-little, test-a-lot” mantra, STAR Systems is poised to provide lower cost, high frequency access to suborbital space on-demand for space tourists, academia and technology developers. Come join us for the ride, the sky is no longer the limit! (see link below)
Hermes was the herald, or messenger, of the gods to humans, sharing this role with Iris. A patron of boundaries and the travelers who cross them, he was the protector of shepherds and cowherds, thieves, orators and wit, literature and poets, athletics and sports, weights and measures, invention, and of commerce in general. (Wiki)
Link: HermesSpace
Space.com: Mini Space Shuttle Looks for Online Donors
NSBP: NSBP Member Hakeem Oluseyi selected to be a TEDGlobal2012 Fellow
Florida Institute of Technology: Hakeem Oluseyi, PhD Faculty Profile
From Greg Laden's Blog: Evolution of the Moon
There is a widely held view in the astronomical community that unmanned robotic space vehicles are, and will always be, more efficient explorers of planetary surfaces than astronauts (e.g. Coates, 2001; Clements 2009; Rees 2011). Partly this is due to a common assumption that robotic exploration is cheaper than human exploration (although, as we shall see, this isn't necessarily true if like is compared with like), and partly from the expectation that continued developments in technology will relentlessly increase the capability, and reduce the size and cost, of robotic missions to the point that human exploration will not be able to compete. I will argue below that the experience of human exploration during the Apollo missions, more recent field analogue studies, and trends in robotic space exploration actually all point to exactly the opposite conclusion.
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| "To boldly go where no man has gone before." TOS, images wiki |
Physics arXiv:
Dispelling the myth of robotic efficiency: why human space exploration will tell us more about the Solar System than will robotic exploration alone,
Ian A. Crawford, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Birkbeck College London
...at least, it's a far less salacious result of "The Google."
Dr. Lawrence Krauss is a Theoretical Physicist and Foundation Professor and Director of the Origins Initiative, Co-Director of the Cosmology Initiative, School of Earth and Space Exploration, BEYOND Center, Department of Physics at Arizona State University, and author of popular physics books like The Physics of Star Trek. This is a noble, balanced attempt at a dialogue of understanding.
Some of the incredible things in this presentation that I saw:
- 50% of US adults know the earth orbits the sun! (Really? Just 50%!)
- Slide: Bad Theology!..a disservice to all people of faith to imply that it is better for our children to remain ignorant of the world than to risk the possibility that knowledge may undermine their faith! (0:22:03)
For political points, there's been a marketing campaign to "teach the controversy"; "teach both sides" as if a great debate still exists.
I am part of a community of faith. For my own family and the Diaspora in general, it was the most efficient means to organize in the aftermath of Emancipation. In some churches (not the one I currently participate), there's a certain orthodoxy that must be accepted, and any deviation is almost attacked...literally. I recall an email exchange between myself and a minister - regarding that I'd read, understood and agreed with "Origin of the Species" and that I did not disagree that the universe was 13.7 billion years old - that wound up in her sermon! I obviously no longer participate in that group.
A 2004 article on National Geographic notes: "In a 1997 survey in the science journal Nature, 40 percent of U.S. scientists said they believe in God—not just a creator, but a God to whom one can pray in expectation of an answer. That is the same percentage of scientists who were believers when the survey was taken 80 years earlier."
Being a scientist, technologist, engineer or mathematician (S.T.E.M. nerd), means you're versed and skilled in The Scientific Method. In a laboratory and workplace that reflects the diversity of humanity, that is the one unifying truth that must be adhered to to get work accomplished.
I am still waiting for a political debate where the questions are moderated by a S.T.E.M. panel. A true "no-spin zone." The answers and outcome would be, in Spock's words, "fascinating."
Any knowledge that undermines a personal faith, is in the end, no faith at all...
The Gated Community Mentality, NYT Opinion article by Richard Benjamin, author of “Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America”and a senior fellow at Demos, a nonpartisan research center
So, how far have we advanced since the '60s?
Comment: There will be more than enough work to do, if we're not short-sighted in how we prepare for it. There are more than enough problems to keep us busy, if we're not afraid solutions will disturb our personal dogmas. We cannot change the past, the only one sure thing we can determine is the future: ours, our country's and the world's.
The world may be in the midst of an economic downturn, yet that has not stopped scientists from planning a whole host of next-generation “big-science” facilities as well as governments pledging billions of euros to build them over the next 10–15 years.
From the ITER fusion experiment currently under construction in Cadarache, France, to the European Spallation Source in Lund, Sweden, the coming decade look to be a boon for researchers seeking new subatomic particles that exist for only a fraction of a second or studying events that occur on the femtosecond timescale.
Physics World: The Challenges of 'big science'; Big-Science Supplement
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| Credit: Physics World |
...and, it's NOT an "April Fool's" joke!
Researchers in Belgium have drawn up plans for an electronic "nanorefrigerator" device that is driven by high-energy photons, and so could potentially be directly powered by the Sun. The device consists of two electrodes, one of which is cooled by replacing hot electrons with cool ones via photon absorption. While this is definitely not the first system that applies the "cooling by heating" concept, it is the first that can be applied for a nanosized device, with no moving parts or electrical input, allowing a lower temperature to be achieved at the nanoscale.
Cooling with heat is not a new idea – the simplest description of the concept would be "sweating" or more scientifically evaporative cooling. While physicists have been using coherent laser light to cool gasses since the 1980s, a theoretical method for cooling a quantum system with noncoherent light, by using an "optomechanical device", was proposed only last year.
Physics World: 'Nanorefrigerator' is cooled using sunlight
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| Discover Magazine |
1 The median score for college-bound seniors on the math section of the SAT in 2011 is about 510 out of 800. So right there is proof that there are lots of unsolved math problems.
2 The great 19th-century mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss called his field “the queen of sciences.”
3 If math is a queen, she’s the White Queen from Alice in Wonderland, who bragged that she believed “as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” (No surprise that Lewis Carroll also wrote about plane algebraic geometry.)
4 For example, the Navier-Stokes equations are used all the time to approximate turbulent fluid flows around aircraft and in the bloodstream, but the math behind them still isn’t understood.
5 And the oddest bits of math often turn out to be useful. Quaternions, which can describe the rotation of 3-D objects, were discovered in 1843. They were considered beautiful but useless until 1985, when computer scientists applied them to rendering digital animation.
My favorite Calculus problem:
More at the link below:
Discover Magazine: 20 Things You Didn't Know About...Math
